Kate Ackley for Roll Call:
The 2022 midterm elections, one year from now, won’t just decide control of the House and Senate but will also provide the first major test of Americans’ confidence in the integrity of their electoral system since the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
People who study campaigns, from academics to operatives, have sounded the alarm about voters’ faith in future U.S. elections given that former President Donald Trump has carried on with his false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, long after a “Stop the Steal” rally in support of him turned deadly.
Last week’s elections pointed to potential political upheaval in the midterms, but they may also have offered small solace to those worried about faith in democracy because losing candidates mostly conceded swiftly. And even in New Jersey, where the Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli has not admitted defeat, he has discouraged supporters from believing internet conspiracies and pledged that after all votes were counted, the result would be “legal and fair.”
Still, some of the ensuing political rhetoric offers cause for concern….
Through the Trump team’s legal challenges, the judicial system “firmly has its feet on the ground and can tell the difference between propaganda and fact,” Torres-Spelliscy said. Also, some of Trump’s lawyers have faced, or are facing, disciplinary action, perhaps providing a disincentive for future candidates to take on similar legal challenges.
Matthew Weil, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project, agreed that some scenarios, should they materialize in the midterms, would be left to the courts. If elections officials refuse to certify results for purely political reasons, Weil said he assumed a court would step in to force them to act.
“We had instances where people were toying with not certifying elections that did not have errors in 2020,” he said. “If we start seeing that, that would be a very big problem and not one the federal government can really confront.”
That’s what worries Richard L. Hasen, a law professor and author of “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy.” The 2022 midterms and, perhaps more importantly, the state and local races, he said, could pave the way for Trump to make his return in 2024.
Already, Trump loyalists are running to oust secretaries of state and other officials who oversee elections. In Georgia, Rep. Jody B. Hice, for example, decided against seeking another House term and is instead challenging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a GOP primary.